


What’s Depression?

by King_Latifah



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-divorce blues, cheesy children’s PSAs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 13:57:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15341322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/King_Latifah/pseuds/King_Latifah
Summary: Ron’s never liked visiting the elementary school, and Leslie dragging him onstage isn’t doing anyone any favors— him especially.





	What’s Depression?

The auditorium is full of bored 1st-graders, and even in their claustrophobic public forums the room has never looked so small to Ron. Baby-blue paint chips off the walls in sheets; he looks around and suppresses a grimace. 

(Somewhere in Virginia, John is in this grade.)

Under the scrutiny of hundreds of eyes, he and Leslie trudge through a tedious production put on by the school and the department of psychology. He was never a theater kid himself, tended to stick with the woodshop kids and the dejected smokers who gossiped and discussed how broken the world was, and he tended to find the most beautiful soliloquies not onstage but in the intimacy of woodworking or canoeing; besides, he’s always disliked children. This said, even Leslie's typical enthusiasm is dulled. Ron cannot wait for the celebratory whiskey that he knows will come when he gets back to the office, softening the edge off the memories of the day.

"Depression?" She asks in a poorly-recited voice for the children. "Isn't that just a fancy science term for feeling ‘ _bummed out_ ’?" 

Though he knows he should be softening his expression for the children— even _smiling_ , God forbid— his frown only deepens and his gaze becomes lost. "Not at all, Leslie. Depression is much more than that."

She puts her hand on her hip in an attempt to seem animated. "Well, what is it, then?" The question is meant to be innocent. 

Somewhere in the back of the auditorium, a child begins to cry loudly. Ron is taken back to his high-school days with the smokers, what he would say to them were they to meet again in a cloud of cigarette stench and rotted teeth. He thinks of his son. He thinks of the day that Leslie threw confetti over the two of them on floor two, his lover so immaculate and iridescent and lovely. He thinks of Diane, living her life—presumably happy, though the notion makes his stomach ache—somewhere in Virginia with his son. He thinks he may cry. 

His eyes harden into focus and he notices Leslie urging him with her eyes to respond. He's got the line memorized, but he looks out to the sea of disinterested faces and chooses instead to speak from the heart.


End file.
